SOKOLOW NOW! The Anna Sokolow Contemporary Dance Company presents their annual spring concert at the Boston University Dance Theater, 915 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 on Saturday, March 26, 2011 at 8pm. Tickets are $22 general admission and $20 for students/seniors/BDA members. For ticket sales and reservations contact the box office at 617-358-2500 (open Wed.-Fri., 2-6 pm, and one hour before the show).

Sokolow Now! is the only company exclusively performing the repertory of the celebrated choreographer Anna Sokolow. Their passion for the work is evident in their stunning, unparalleled theatrical stagings of Sokolow’s original choreography. More information can be found at http://www.annasokolow.org.

Under the artistic of direction of Lorry May, the company performs three internationally acclaimed dances that express the depth and diversity of Sokolow’s work. The program opens with the beautifully conceived and executed Lyric Suite, choreographed in 1953 to Alban Berg’s score of the same name. Lyric Suite was a major landmark in Sokolow’s choreographic career, establishing her place as a major modern dance choreographer.

"It is one of the finest examples of lyric theater dance seen in many a season. It speaks in abstract and stark simplicity, translating the qualitative moods of the music into penetrating and evocative movement designs. Superbly choreographed and thoroughly integrated, its beauty has a direct appeal to kinesthetic response."(On Lyric Suite, Louis Horst, Dance Observer)

The second work of the evening, A Short Lecture and Demonstration on the Evolution of Ragtime choreographed in 1952, is a light-hearted romp through the social dances of the 1920’s and 30’s. This dance is set to the same music and text that Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe (stage name Jelly Roll Morton) used for his own lectures on the evolution of ragtime.

"Anna proved that social dance forms have an inherent dramatic power when they are artfully used as an expression of the society that created them."(On A Short Lecture and Demonstration …, Clive Barnes, New York Times)

Completing the program is Sokolow’s Dreams, choreographed in 1961 to a musical collage by composers Teo Macero, Anton Webern and J.S. Bach. Dreams, Sokolow’s signature work, is her searing statement about man’s inhumanity to man.

"Sokolow's vision is of the collective social experience and the power of this experience over the fragile human body. Sokolow's trademark is to distill movement and emotion, paring it down to something so simple that it takes on timeless resonance. These images present human beings misshapen by experience. They emerge from history as flesh and blood, eerily unnamed and without the personal stories which can serve to distance their lives from our own."(On Dreams, Alice Naude, Manhattan Spirit)

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